ELT remote switch question

My remote switch isn't working. I had someone on the forum give me one that he removed from his plane and unfortunately it isn't working either. There isn't much info for Ameri-king on Google. I tested my ELT (121.5 not a 406 model) and it definitely works. I find it hard to believe both remotes are bad. The remotes are fairly simple circuits. I've replaced the battery in the remote, DL 1/3N. From my understanding the phone cable for an Ameri-King is pin for pin.

Does the remote switch need to be connected to the ELT for the LED on the remote to light up??? Next time I'm at the airport I'll use a new phone cable to rule out the cable. Any other ideas for trouble shooting?

UPDATE:
So I checked the cable and the connector wasn't crimped all the way. The remote switch is now working turning ON and OFF the ELT however the led on the remote is not working. A month or so ago when I was ohming out the switch the led lite up. I also have a backup remote switch someone on the forum gave me and the led on that switch is not lighting up. On both ends of the connector, pins 2,3,4,5 are being used, pins 1 & 6 are not wired. On the remote switch there are 6 pins for the cable which only use pins 2,3,4,5 and for the ELT unit there are only 4 pins (which use pins 2,3,4,5 on the cable) Does anyone have any ideas as to the problem?

Thanks,
Daren

FireMedic_2009 said:

My remote switch isn't working. I had someone on the forum give me one that he removed from his plane and unfortunately it isn't working either. There isn't much info for Ameri-king on Google. I tested my ELT (121.5 not a 406 model) and it definitely works. I find it hard to believe both remotes are bad. The remotes are fairly simple circuits. I've replaced the battery in the remote, DL 1/3N. From my understanding the phone cable for an Ameri-King is pin for pin.

Does the remote switch need to be connected to the ELT for the LED on the remote to light up??? Next time I'm at the airport I'll use a new phone cable to rule out the cable. Any other ideas for trouble shooting?

Thanks,
Daren

Click to expand...

FWIW standard off-the-shelf phone cables are NOT compatible with the AmeriKing ELT setup. In the standard off-the-shelf phone cable two of the wires are cris-crossed while the AmeriKing has all the wires running straight through, no cris-crossing.

Make sure the cable you are currently using is an AmeriKing cable, or one built with straight through wires, not a standard off-the-shelf phone cable.

Also, make sure you have a good connection on the battery. The terminals can bend slightly giving a flaky connection. Ensure you have 3v across the terminals.

GalinHdz said:

FWIW standard off-the-shelf phone cables are NOT compatible with the AmeriKing ELT setup. In the standard off-the-shelf phone cable two of the wires are cris-crossed while the AmeriKing has all the wires running straight through, no cris-crossing.

Make sure the cable you are currently using is an AmeriKing cable, or one built with straight through wires, not a standard off-the-shelf phone cable.

Click to expand...

If it's wrong, you can avoid pulling another cable...just cut off one end, and go to Home Depot or Lowe's or whatever and buy a cheapie crimper for these cables, plus a pack of connectors, and crimp a new on. Easy-peasy.

RV7A Flyer said:

If it's wrong, you can avoid pulling another cable...just cut off one end, and go to Home Depot or Lowe's or whatever and buy a cheapie crimper for these cables, plus a pack of connectors, and crimp a new on. Easy-peasy.

Click to expand...

Yes it is easy and something I recommend doing instead of running a complete new cable.

On my 6A, I had an ELT failure (failed ON in flight). It traced to the cable - one of the connectors had corrosion due to moisture and I solved it with the ?Home Depot phone connector? solution described above.

The elt panel switches do go bad. I had one that was two years old that quit. Changed the battery and still would not work. The switches are no longer available as a replacement.

ELT Remote update

See update question on pg 1

the switch unit is super simple. Open it up. The coin cell battery is only there to drive the LED, so first make sure that is good.
If so, you can trace the wires to the LED and just short those to see if the LED lights. Connector pins 1 and 4 I think. If the LED lights, it's your cable.
See page 22 in the manual.
www.neboservice.ru/docs/0653787001224776223.pdf

Remote ELT Question

fl-mike said:

the switch unit is super simple. Open it up. The coin cell battery is only there to drive the LED, so first make sure that is good.
If so, you can trace the wires to the LED and just short those to see if the LED lights. Connector pins 1 and 4 I think. If the LED lights, it's your cable.
See page 22 in the manual.
www.neboservice.ru/docs/0653787001224776223.pdf

Click to expand...

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the response. Yes the battery was replaced. I also ohm-ed out the switch over a month ago tracing out the pins (yes it's a simple circuit) and the led lit up while ohm-ing out the circuit so the led works.

The cable was tested with a cable tester that sends signals down the line sequentially to a unit you plug the other end of the cable into to. That's how I found out the connector on one end wasn't crimped down enough. Once I crimped the connector down the cable worked on all 4 wires and in the same order as the signal generator, so the cable is definitely good. The only way the led on the remote will lite if it gets the signal from one of the wires coming from the ELT. So the only thing I can think of is the ELT is not sending the signal to the wire or the pin on the ELT is not making contact with the pin on the cable. Now I did notice by accident that when the led wouldn't lite I disconnected the cable from the ELT side to double check to see if the wires on the connector were on pins 2,3,4,5 (the connector is a 6 pin, the pins in the female connector on the ELT unit only has 4 pins in positions 2,3,4, and 5) which they were. When I reconnected it and tested the remote again, the remote was unable to turn ON the ELT. When I wiggled the connector around on the ELT side I pushed the remote switch again and it set off the ELT. I wiggled the connector again 5 -6 times and each time when I pressed the remote it set off the ELT. The reason I did that was to see how sensitive the connector was. I am also able to turn off / reset the ELT at the remote switch as well in case you were wondering.

Any other ideas as to why the led is not lighting on the remote?

Thanks,
Daren

According to the diagram provided in the link (Page 22) the Remote LED is activated using pins 1 & 4 yet you say only pins 2,3,4 & 5 are actually installed in your ELT. If so then your remote is not the correct one for your ELT. The Ameriking remotes for the 450's and 451's are different. Even between 451's, P/N 450004-4 and P/N 450004-5 the remotes are different and not interchangeable.



An easy way to check the remote is to put a jumper between pins 1 & 4 on the connector on the ELT side of the cable and see if the LED lights up. All the ELT does when activated is to connect pins 1 & 4 together so the LED lights up.

BTW: The Remote Multi-Axis Acceleration switch shown in the image is used in helicopter installations so not applicable for most of us.

ELT Remote

GalinHdz said:

According to the diagram provided in the link (Page 22) the Remote LED is activated using pins 1 & 4 yet you say only pins 2,3,4 & 5 are actually installed in your ELT. If so then your remote is not the correct one for your ELT. The Ameriking remotes for the 450's and 451's are different. Even between 451's, P/N 450004-4 and P/N 450004-5 the remotes are different and not interchangeable.

An easy way to check the remote is to put a jumper between pins 1 & 4 on the connector on the ELT side of the cable and see if the LED lights up. All the ELT does when activated is to connect pins 1 & 4 together so the LED lights up.

BTW: The Remote Multi-Axis Acceleration switch shown in the image is used in helicopter installations so not applicable for most of us.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response.
I did check the LED on the remote and it does light up as stated previously. The phone cable connector has the ability to have 6 pins. When only 4 pins are used as in a 4 conductor wire, the two outer gold pins on the male connector are absent which is typical when a 4 conductor wire is used on a phone cable. So when I refer to pin number I am referring to pin location on the connector whether the pin is there or not in order to be more accurate.

The female connector on the unit has only 4 connector wires showing (when I say 4 connector wires I mean contacts that makes contact with the male connector pins) and in positions 2,3,4,5 which means it will only make contact with pins 2,3,4,5 on the cable. I guess you can call it pins 1,2,3,4 if want since it is a 4 conductor cable however I am referring to the location on the connector to be more accurate.

The female connector on the remote switch has all 6 connector wires showing but since the cable is only a 4 conductor cable the wires on the cable are connected to pins 2,3,4,5 on the male connector which will make contact with 2,3,4,5 on the remote switch. However if Ameri-king is deviating from the norm when using a 4 conductor wire and connecting the 4 wires in pin location 1,2,3,4 on the connector then that's a communication problem which could be made more clear by them by showing a drawing of the connector with the wires in the proper location.

The wires on the connector on one end of the cable must be in positions 2,3,4,5 on the unit side since the connector on the unit only shows connections in these positions, so the wires on the cable connector are crimped in the correct position. If the wires other end of the cable connecting to the remote switch must be crimped in positions 1,2,3,4 on the connector then that would require the end of the cable to be marked, "To remote switch". Question, have you seen an Ameri-king phone cable marking the ends of the cable, "this end to unit", "this end to remote"? I ask the question because I have never worked on an ELT before other than my plane. If the wires are not in the correct pin locations on the connector why am I able to turn Activate the ELT with the ON button and de-activate the ELT with the Reset button? If these buttons work appropriately then I'm lead to believe the wires on the connector are in the correct location. Any other thoughts the problem could be???

Thanks
Daren

Sounds like you have 75% of the functionality checked out. Next step would be to check if pins 1 and 4 are shorted together when the ELT is commanded "ON". Pin 1 is the reference ground for the circuit and pin 4 is pulled to ground when the ELT is "ON" to activate the LED,(closing the battery-LED circuit). You can check the switch panel side of the cable first if you like. If 1 and 4 don't behave there, check it at the ELT connector. That's all that's left!
If the pins don't short together at the ELT when "ON", the failure is inside the ELT.

FireMedic_2009 said:

If the wires are not in the correct pin locations on the connector why am I able to turn Activate the ELT with the ON button and de-activate the ELT with the Reset button?

Click to expand...

Because pins 2,3,4 & 5 on your remote switch are still connected to pins 2,3,4 & 5 on the ELT so the functions controlled by these pins work.

According to the diagram, the LED in your remote uses pins 1 & 4 to light up but pin 1 & 6 don't even exist on your ELT. That is why your ELT doesn't activate the remote LED but everything else works. The AmeriKing 451 uses a different remote switch with pins 5 & 2 controlling the LED (page 63 of the manual). Your remote is not the correct one for your ELT which explains why neither remote works for you.

I just tested the remote and the LED lites when I short pins 1&4 on the diagram (pins 2&5 on the connector) which is how the phone cable is connected to the connector.
Pin 1 on the diagram (Arm GND) is pin 2 on the connector
Pin 2 " " (Reset) is Pin 3 " "
pin 3 " " (ON) is Pin 4 " "
pin 4 " " (lite ON gnd) is Pin 5 " "

Since the remote is able to turn ON and Off the ELT, that means pin 1 (diagram) on the ELT is working. Since the led is not lighting up, that tells me pin 4 (diagram) on the ELT is not working or making a connection to the phone cable. I know all 4 of the connections on the phone cable is good because I tested it.